Weather and Traffic

Hurricane record shows few quiet Augusts

The odds of tropical activity always jump in August in South Florida. But we have had Augusts without any tropical storms – or hurricanes – at all.

I checked the records – which date to the 1886 season – and found that quiet Augusts are indeed a rarity. Over the 123-year period, we had 15 Augusts without a storm (which weren’t named until 1950). That’s 12.2 percent.

However, if you narrow it down to the last 80 years, since 1929, we’ve only had four seasons without an August storm, or 5 percent. Which of course means that those early records show a lot more mid-season down time than the later ones do.

During the 40-year period from 1886 to 1926, we had 11 years without an August storm, or a significant 27.5 percent.

No doubt there have been changes in the climate over that period of time. But the biggest factor is the sophistication level of the tools used to identify tropical systems. The first weather satellite was launched on April 1, 1960. Even then, it functioned 78 days of the year and only recorded images during daylight hours.

As you can see by clicking on the link above, the pictures were rudimentary (and the first photos were rushed to the desk of President Eisenhower). Prior to that we were relying strictly on shipping observations and radio reports when they became available.

Since the beginning of the satellite era, just two of 49 seasons were without August storms, or 4.1 percent.

The four years without August storms since 1929, by the way, were 1929, 1944, 1961, and 1997. There were only three storms in 1929, with one hurricane each in June, September and October.

The quietest season ever was 1914 – one lonely tropical storm spun up that year, in September.

We may not get too deep into August without a storm this season. A tropical wave that pushed off the coast of Africa over the weekend is getting some attention in tropical weather chat rooms, and it has held together through this morning.

Computer models have been unimpressed, though, and we probably won’t see any analysis by the National Hurricane Center until at least mid-week.